there aren't many around
In last Saturday's Advertiser, I read a story about an Adelaide barrister, named David Stokes, who had recently (last year) come out as a woman. Transgendered. She now comes to work in dresses and high heels, make up and dangly earrings, the whole works. Not a problem, she's been accepted by her peers, uses the women's bathroom, no one is fussed and she is now very happy as Heather Stokes. Here's the paragraph that caught my attention. "I chose the name Heather last year because....it was relatively uncommon. There aren't a lot of Heathers around." She's right. I knew a Heather in primary school. Since then, not a one. I've lived in South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, twice, Victoria, also twice, and now back in South Australia for the last 27 years. Not one Heather. Yet it is such a pretty name.